User:Mdaguila

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MIGUEL DEL AGUILA

composer  -  pianist    
  
 
 Critics all over the world recognize the compositional voice and talent that is Miguel del Aguila. While he has great respect for the classical tradition, Aguila believes he must create the freshest, most spontaneous music he can. What results is a captivating interplay of classical balance and romantic excess. Aguila's penchant for devising programs for his own works (which are usually not disclosed) further enhances his highly dramatic style in which musical ideas, always simple and recognizable, are pushed to extremes by propulsive rhythms and adventurous instrumentation. 

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay; American composer Miguel del Aguila moved to the US in 1978 and after graduating from The San Francisco Conservatory of Music he traveled to Vienna to further music studies. After ten years there, during which time he was active as composer, pianist, and music teacher, he returned in 1992 to live in Southern California. Numerous premieres of his works followed, and in 1994 Los Angeles Times critics chose him "resident music man of the year" and later "One of the West Coast's most promising and enterprising young composers". He was honored with a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award in 1995 and several California Arts Council Fellowships and Residencies from 1996 to 2000. Most recently his works received the support of "Meet the Composer"s Music Alive program, The Copland Fundation, and the Argosy Foundation for Contemporary Music. Aguila's catalog of over 90 works includes opera, orchestral, choral, solo and chamber works as well as incidental music for theater and film. International premieres of his works have been broadcast worldwide by radio and TV. To this date, his works have been recorded by first rate artists on 17 different CD's which are available on different labels. Several of his works are published by Peermusic since 1986, (Theodore Presser distributor).

His busy schedule as pianist/composer includes solo performances with several orchestras and solo concerts at New York's Carnegie Recital Hall and Merkin Hall and at Vienna's Konzerthaus and Bösendorfer Hall. Aguila was appointed conductor and music director of California based Ojai Camerata from 1996 to 2000, and is founder director of the West Coast composer's group Voices. From 2000 to 2004 Aguila commuted between New York and California spending summers as resident composer at the Chautauqua Institution Summer Festival. Aguila is currently composer in residence with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra in Albuquerque through a Meet The Composer's Extended Residences Grant.

PRESS QUOTES:

"…dependably brilliant…" 

(The New Yorker Magazine)

"..elegant and affectionate music ..a delicious send-up of Minimalism ..with genuine wit.." (The New York Times)

"…One of the West Coast's most promising and enterprising young composers…" "…sonically dazzling…" "…a whirlwind of energy and ideas…" "…a mischievous mix of personalized romanticism and structural self-derailment…" "…a sly radical in formal wear…" (Los Angeles Times)

"…one of the most intriguing compositional voices to come along in recent years…" (San Antonio Express News)

"..irresistible rhythms… powerfully propelled by frantic tempos pleasantly demented piece..disarmingly genial.." (San Francisco Sentinel)

"...cinematic effects..." Washington Post

"...Wonderfully expressive and dramatic music..with a fine sense of direction and drama.." (American Record Guide)

"…unusual…superb…"

(Fanfare) 

"…his music dances with incendiary rhythms…with near to obsessive vitality…" (Wiener Zeitung, Vienna)

"…disarmingly charming…" (Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich)

"…his works show a modern musical conception, profound ideas and expressivity… The audience welcomed his music with enthusiasm…" (Novoe Vremia, Moskow)